Ever, Ever, After
by Count Sporkula
Summary: Ayu and the gang set out to save Sasuke, but what happens when Ayu gets kidnapped? And what happens when Sasuke goes looking for Suigetsu, Juugo, and Rai  replacing Karin ? Find out now, in Ever, Ever, After  title subject to change .
1. CHAPTER 0

**CHAPTER 0: INTRO AND INFO**

**OKAY GUYS.**

**For those of you who have read this before, you know where this whole shebang is headed. **

**THIS IS A STORY REWRITE! YAY!**

**No, not yay, because I have to rewrite 20-odd freaking chapters.**

**I felt like the story seriously sucked before, and it left a lot of unattached strings at the end, so this calls for a rewrite. **

**Author's Notes: There are some author's notes throughout these chapters that I wrote for the first time I wrote this story that I'm going to keep intact simply because I spend WAY too much time on author's notes and I like some of them. I'll let you know which is old and which is new, however. (: **

**MOVING ON…**

**This idea settled itself in my head after getting back into Naruto and reading the chapters where Sasuke goes to get Juugo, Suigetsu, and Karin.**

**ALSO: Karin has been kicked out of the picture. I really hope it doesn't take away too much from the story, but hey. I've replaced her, with a creation of my very own! Her name is Reicheru, Rai for short. Rai is an 18-year-old whose past is unknown by all, including her.**

**SIDE NOTE TO THAT: Rai does NOT become the main character until we meet Ayu (no last name, much like Tenten has no last name). Just to clear that up. So first we meet Ayu, and then we meet Rai. Yeah.**

**The story obviously takes place in Shippuuden, and after Sasuke has killed Orochimaru. **

**Ahm. **

**OH YES. Pronunciations. Just in case you don't know how to pronounce some of these later characters' names:**

**Juugo – JOO-goh.**

**Suigetsu- soo-GET-soo (I'm pretty sure that's how it's pronounced.)**

**Reicheru –ree-CHAIR-oo **

**Rai- ra-EE**

**RANDOM FACT: Reicheru (could also be spelled "Reijeru") translated into English is "Rachel"**

**WOWWWW that took up more than a whole page on Microsoft Word!**

**DISCLAIMER/UPDATE: I have not read completely up to date in the manga or watched the anime up to date. I'm up to the part where all the Kages meet. So don't bomb me for getting some plot stuff wrong; this isn't really following the plot that much anyways.**

**One more thing about my formatting: anything directly at the beginning or end of a chapter that is said in bold letters is USUALLY an author's note from me. You'll usually be able to tell what an A.N. is and what's part of the story though.**


	2. CHAPTER 1: Circus Animal

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x..x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

There is a moment. Just a moment. A pair of eyes make friends with the stars, for just a moment. A smile blesses the cheeks of a mere child as the moonlight bathes her skin. Every day she ruins, wastes away a bit more. But for just a moment, she is whole again.

**xlxlxlxlxlxlxlx Chapter 1: Circus Animal xlxlxlxlxlxlxlx**

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP—

SMASH.

"Shit, not again…"

A rather disgruntled young woman grumbled angrily to herself as she wrestled to untangle her legs from the bed sheets. Despite her annoyance, grogginess managed to fog and befuddle her. She sat up rather half-heartedly and her shoulders slouched involuntarily. She itched for good posture, but her body was slower than her brain. Finally, she lifted her arms above her head and stretched with a yawn that should have burst her ear drums. Sleep was still a hovering cloud, threatening to send torrential rains to drown her.

"Shake it off…" she thought, shaking her shoulders and wiggling her toes. A sliver of light drew her eyes to the window beside her bed. She pushed aside her curtains and looked around. The light was from the man who delivered the paper, making the daily rounds in his old, beat-up hatchback.

"Damn, I'm an idiot," the girl said to herself. "Who _else_ decides to set the alarm for 5:00 AM on a Saturday?" She looked at the remains of her alarm clock scattered about the floor and debated on the effectiveness of cleaning up the mess. Later, she decided. Routine first.

Stumbling awkwardly out of bed, the drowsy girl trudged to her small bathroom to care for her hygienic needs. She squeezed the nearly-empty tube of minty toothpaste until there was just barely enough on the toothbrush to clean her teeth.

The girl examined herself thoroughly as she brushed. Her cocoa eyes looked tired, but burned as they regarded their own reflection resentfully as they noticed the bruise-like rings that rimmed the bottom lid. The lovely irises were not pleased; these dark, unattractive intruders were stealing the spotlight like the ringmaster of a circus that taunts his lovely assistants for getting roped into accenting such a heinous performance. Two sleek, brown foxes, her brows, hide from the predicament, furrowing in their frustration. They hide below a clear, creamy, pale stretch of forehead that wrinkles with the stress of being restrained by a hundred thousand dark brown ropes, all bound sloppily together in the back.

A long, straight ramp stretches between them all, slightly freckled and rounded cutely at the end. Below the ramp are two red clown's shoes, red, full albeit chapped lips, set apart slightly as though in scowl, and worn by a sobbing clown who pulses with the rhythm of a foaming baton, taming the pale audience beneath his feet.

Rii Ayu felt like a circus act. She was an exploitation of her own racing thoughts that chased each other like clowns on bikes—loud, sobbing, screaming, chanting, angry clowns who turned a well-polished freak show routine into a horrendous exhibit of animalistic creatures and props. She closed her eyes, allowing herself an intermission before putting on the next act. The harsh lights were still burned into her retinas and they changed shapes every time her eyelids twitched. She saw a clown, a car, a crash, a cry, a cure, a cop-out—and nothing.

Something is different about today, she decided. "Do you agree?" she asked the collection of circus performers in the mirror that mimicked every contraction of her muscles. They seemed unable to think for themselves; they looked sternly at Ayu and seemed to await her opinion. "I thought so, too." The performers went back to mimicking her. "No matter. Routine must continue as usual." She climbed into a scalding shower, allowing it to drown and sear her circus act out.

**xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


End file.
